CHD Promotes Livelihood, Education in Remote Village in Sichuan

Now that the pandemic has been gradually prevented and controlled, villagers in Guen, Jinyang town of Liangshan Yi autonomous region of Southwest China's Sichuan province, have started spring ploughing.

Seeing the new houses and the expanding road, it's hard to imagine that just two years ago, the village was one of the poorest areas in China.

Located at an altitude of more than 2,400 meters, Guen is the remotest village of Jinyang town which has barren land and has experienced bad harvests.

Huadian Jinsha River Upstream Hydropower Development Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of China Huadian Corporation Ltd. (CHD), sent Du Guangyuan and Huang Mingwei to the village to help the villagers get rid of poverty.

They investigated and surveyed the situation of the village and of each household as soon as they arrived.

With 5 million yuan ($704,483.33) of poverty alleviation funds provided by CHD and support from the government, Du and Huang made plans to build road and houses, develop special industries, improve local education and help employment, and successfully pulled the village out of the poverty by their target of December 2019.

New and orderly houses in the village [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

It seemed that in the village's barren soil only corn and potatoes could grow. Several years ago the villagers had tried to grow peppers but the seedlings all died in summer because of a shortage of water.

After a lot of thought, Du and Huang agreed that compared with other plants, peppers were actually the easiest crop to grow in the village.

They therefore set about learning skills from experts in growing peppers and tried to persuade the local people, but failed. So they rented two mu of land at the entrance of the village and started to grow peppers by themselves, following the experts' instructions.

They returned to the villagers' doors months later offering effective methods to grow peppers and gave out pepper seedlings and water retaining agents for free.

The pepper trees bore fruits within three years and the annual revenue generated from each mu is about 8,000 yuan.

In the eyes of Du, the seedlings were the villagers' best hope to get rid of poverty.

Villagers learn how to plant peppers [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

In addition to pepper planting, Du also helped villagers learn technical skills which benefited their job hunting.

With support of the government and CHD, the village had built decent roads to the outside world. However, most lacked education and experience which made it hard for them to find employment.

Therefore, Du advised them to learn driving skills, an idea supported by CHD.

Villagers are trained with driving skills for free with the support of Huadian Jinsha River Upstream Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

In late 2018, the company allocated 520,000 yuan to offer free driving training to 45 villagers between 20 and 35 years old or above from the poverty households who had graduated from high school.

Obtaining driving licenses, some villagers bought their own vans and joined the transport industry.

A second group of training courses has now ended and Du hopes that more people will make a living with their skills.

In terms of education, CHD launched the 150,000 yuan Inspiring Scholarship to encourage pupils in the village.

In 2018 and 2019, 124 outstanding students received the scholarship and their average score improved by 10 points.

Both Du and Huang were titled outstanding models for poverty alleviation in Sichuan. As for the old village, it is now striding towards a brighter future.

The Inspiring Scholarship is launched by Huadian Jinsha River Upstream Hydropower Development Co., Ltd to encourage local pupils. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

(Executive editor: Zhang Tianyuan)